Home to open arms

The soldiers of the 224th Engineer Battalion at long last wrapped their strong arms around the ones they love Saturday, squeezing out 15 months of loneliness, frustration and fear in an enormous burst of joy.

There is work ahead  a slow climb back into "real" life after 11 months in Iraq's danger zone.

But for now, the whole world fits into the words of Sgt. Aaron Burgus, little Brayden's favorite engineer.

"It's just great to be back."

Back they are, all across southeast Iowa, the Iowa Army National Guard battalion's four companies and one detachment arriving nearly simultaneously in Burlington, Fairfield, Keokuk, Mount Pleasant and Ottumwa.

In each community, the Iowa Army National Guard soldiers were greeted as heroes.

"Not a soul here today," retired Master Sgt. Don Henry told the men of Company A at their homecoming ceremony at Southeastern Community College in West Burlington, "not an American worth his salt, can disparage the work you've done."

Successful duty

No unit in western Iraq faced greater danger than the 224th.

That's not an editorial comment. That's the undisputed opinion of Maj. Gen Richard Huck, commander of the 2nd Marine Division.

Huck relied on the citizen soldiers from Iowa  480 or so smalltown friends and neighbors  to find and destroy the insurgents' deadliest weapons: Roadside bombs.

How successful were they?

The 224th deployed in January. By October, they had met a seemingly impossible challenge set forth by Huck himself.

Imagine 10 improvised explosive devices placed along a single stretch of road in Ramadi, Iraq. Before the 224th arrived, bombsweeping teams would have detected and eliminated just three of those bombs.

The other seven? They would have detonated, causing untold coalition casualties.

In 10 short months, the engineers flipped those numbers, finding seven bombs for every three that went off.

"The techniques and tactics these engineers (created) are being used in Iraq today and briefed at the Pentagon," Maj. Gen Ron Dardis, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard.

Not bad for a bunch of average Joes  and more than a few Janes  who serve their communities as police officers and security guards, farmers and factory workers.

The engineers have been at Fort Sill, Okla., the past eight days, enduring endless hours of paperwork, briefings and checkups.

They finally started home late Friday, cramming tired behinds into undersized bus seats next to oversized buddies for a 12hour ride back to southeast Iowa.

The buses were supposed to complete the trip just in time for the 11 a.m. homecoming ceremonies. But, in Burlington and Mount Pleasant, at least, the famous Army punctuality proved untrue.

Oh well, after 15 months on active duty, what's another 30 minutes?

"That was the longest ride from Fort Madison to Burlington I've ever been on," said Spc. Joe Whalen, a Burlington native.

Welcomed arrival

When the Company A buses finally came within sight of the SCC campus, the news zapped through the crowd in the Loren Walker Arena like electricity through water.

Standing outside in the frigid air, Meri Lipper started crying when she saw the first car in the police escort. When the happiness in her heart grew too big for her chest, she buried her face into her 15yearold daughter's neck and sobbed.

"She's been the most wonderful daughter I could have," Lipper said. "She's been my rock."

With that, Mom and daughter cried together.

Half a minute later, Meri was tolerably composed and on her cell phone: Staff Sgt. Dan Lipper was in the third bus, second from the front.

The family waited. The buses stopped.

Where was he? Where was he? There. Snapping pictures through the window.

Shrieks of glee. Meri weeping again. Had it finally ended?

"I'm very happy, I'm nervous and I'm scared," she said. "I'm scared because they had to see and do things that they had never had to do in their lives and I don't know if he's going to be the man I knew before he left."

"Yes," a woman nearby answered, "he is."

Soldiers' faces filled every bus window, their eyes darting over the mass of people for the special someone they had waited so long to see.

But this was still the military. The engineers waited several minutes before disembarking. Then they assembled in a company formation.

After hourlong minutes, Cpt. Jason Wisehart led his men singlefile inside and down a hallway lined with saluting police officers, fire fighters, sheriff's deputies and veterans to the arena.

It's hard to imagine the 2,400seat gymnasium was ever louder than when Wisehart stepped through the door.

Except that it was, just 29 minutes later, when 1st Sgt. Denny Manning called his troops to attention and, in a surprisingly big voice for his small stature, bellowed, "Company dismissed."

His command, like the final horn in a championship game, unleashed a pandemonium of people. The crowd surged out of the bleachers and onto the court. Moms and dads, sons and daughters, and ohsomany happy wives crashed into their soldiers with hugs that would have knocked lesser men off their feet. Sisters clawed over brothers to be the first in daddy's arms, while grandmas and grandpas hung back with cameras to freeze the happiness in time.

How to say it? A moment of pure joyfulness. The kind of scene that makes you swallow back tears, then give up and let them flow.

"That's the best Christmas present these kids could ever have," said Janet Peterson, Brayden Burgus' greatgrandmother. "It's good for greatgrandma, too. Now she won't have to babysit so much."

Lost soldiers

Amid all the bliss Saturday, there was heartache for those families who no longer had a soldier to welcome home.

Four members of the 224th Engineer Battalion, including three from Company A, were killed in Iraq.

First Lt. Richard "Brian" Gienau and Sgt. Seth Garceau died in a February bomb attack, while Spc. John Wayne Miller, of West Burlington, was shot by a sniper in April.

"He would have hugged everybody that was here to see him, then went home to have dinner with his family," said Amanda Swank, Miller's cousin.

Spc. Casey Byers, a Company B soldier, died in another bombing in June.

Twentyseven other engineers received Purple Hearts for their injuries.

At least two soldiers who were brought back to the U.S. to recuperate were in formation with their companies Saturday.

Sgt. Robert Briggs of Salem, who suffered head trauma and lost an eye in a mortar explosion, rose from his redwhiteandbluecovered wheelchair at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant to stand proud with his fellow Company C soldiers.

And Spc. Terry Grant, taking leave from Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he is being treated for nerve damage in his arm, journeyed home to Burlington to be with Company A.

"You went through life and death everyday," Grant said. "You want to be with them. They're like your family.

"Even if you hate the guy, you'll stand up with him. You're connected forever.

Moving forward

Families of those soldiers who returned unharmed still have problems to conquer, fears to overcome.

"I've gotten used to being by myself for so long," said Alicia Whalen, who was sweethearts with Joe in Burlington before the two married five months prior to his deployment. "Things are going to change and I want to say I'm ready for it, but I'm nervous."

According to Sgt. 1st Class Dean Sweet, Company A lost nearly half its soldiers in the early 1990s after Operation Desert Storm.

Some will call it quits this time around, he acknowledge. But there also will be those whose greatest struggle is adjusting to life at home.

"They've changed," Sweet said. "Their families have changed. They've got to get to know new families all over again."

That being said, there is something attractive about the comforts of home.

"You'll miss the camaraderie," said Sgt. Tim Shay, a Muscatine soldier who was wounded in the blast that killed Garceau and Gienau. "But, at the same time, it's going to be a blessing not to have to wake up with everybody around you all the time."

The engineers really have been gone for a while. They landed in Kuwait on New Year's Day during the third quarter of the Capital One Bowl matching Iowa and Louisiana State University.

The Hawkeyes won that game, and have since wrapped up another season and earned another bowl bid.

The soldiers were away for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the death of Pope John Paul and the swearing in of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Over the same period in Iraq, voters adopted a new national constitution, Saddam Hussein went on trial, and the U.S. death total in the war topped 2,000.

Without a doubt, it's been a long year.

Which brings us back to the Burgus family. Amanda, little Brayden's mom, was expecting guests Saturday at their house in Burlington. Then Aaron wanted to sit back and drink some beer: "Something we didn't have the freedom to do in Iraq."

As for Taylor, Brayden's 7yearold sister, she had some photo albums to put away.

For more than a year, Taylor looked at pictures so she wouldn't forget her daddy.